Race and Ethnicity

The first European immigrants to Brazil were of Iberian origin,
primarily Portuguese. Some Portuguese settlers were of Jewish or Moorish
origin but most of them had converted to Christianity. There were also
some Dutch immigrants to the Northeast in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. The Portuguese intermarried with the Amerindian population,
which was decimated by conflict and disease.

During the colonial period, after Indian slavery proved difficult to
enforce, the colonists imported hundreds of thousands of slaves from
Africa for labor on the sugar plantations, in the mines, and later on
coffee plantations. At first, slaves outnumbered the white settlers in
many areas, but the balance eventually changed because of their high
mortality and low fertility. However, as slavery became economically and
politically less feasible after 1850 and the British blocked the slave
trade, Italian immigrants began replacing the slaves on coffee
plantations in São Paulo. During the same period, settlers from Europe,
primarily Germany, Italy, and Poland, established farming colonies in
parts of the South.

Brazil's racial mix was made more diverse with the arrival of
Japanese and Middle Eastern immigrants in the early twentieth century.
At first, the Japanese worked in agriculture in São Paulo and the
Amazon, while the Lebanese, Turks, and Syrians became involved in
commerce in many parts of the country. During the 1900s, the Japanese
descendants, who constitute the largest community of Japanese outside of
Japan, except for Hawaii, became primarily urban residents, especially
in São Paulo. In the 1970s, intermarriage with non-Japanese became
common.

As emphasized by anthropologists such as Gilberto Freyre and Darcy
Ribeiro, all the racial and ethnic groups that arrived in Brazil
intermingled and intermarried, with few exceptions. This led to
increasing mixtures of all possible combinations and degrees. Many
individuals are, therefore, difficult to classify in racial terms.
Questions on color were included in the demographic censuses of 1940,
1950, 1980, and 1991. Although the answers involved self-classification
and may not have been objective, it was clear that the proportion of
blacks decreased while that of mulattoes increased. There was a
simultaneous process of "whitening." The self-declared
proportions in 1991 were 55.3 percent white, 39.3 percent mulatto, 4.9
percent black, and 0.6 percent Asian.

Because of the lack of a clear color distinction and a strong
cultural tradition of tolerance and cordiality, as well as longstanding
explicit laws against racial discrimination, Brazil has been touted as a
"racial democracy." However, "racial democracy" is a
myth. There is a very strong correlation between light color and higher
income, education, and social status. Few blacks reach positions of
wealth, prestige, and power, except in the arts and sports. Although
discrimination is usually not explicit, it appears in subtle forms:
unwritten rules, unspoken attitudes, references to "good
appearance" rather than color, or simply placing higher value on
individuals who are white or nearly white.

In the 1960s, black consciousness began to grow, although the very
lack of a clear color line in biological or social terms weakened racial
solidarity of the nonwhite population. The prevailing notion that Brazil
was a "racial democracy" also made it easy to dismiss black
movements as un-Brazilian. For the most part, the movements did not
press for changes in government policy, which was already officially
against racial discrimination. Instead, they emphasized racial pride and
the struggle against subtle forms of discrimination and the often covert
violence to which blacks were subject.